Samstag, Januar 24, 2015

Obviously I'm in a time sucking vortex or something (o.k. the kids are down with Bronchitis, so that might be a clue why I haven't had time to do ANYTHING) so the pictures from Christmas are still on the camera.

A bit of knitting has happend though and I'm also sewing a bit for "Fasching" (that is something typical to Mid- to South Germany not so much for the North, where I'm living. People get dressed up and party a lot. There are parades and stuff.) for the kids. M. has decided she want's to be a magician but in a fairy kind of way (I told her, if she wants to dress like a princess she can take on of the 4 princess dressess she has.

E. want to be a wizzardess in a fairy kind of way (not to be confused with a magician fairy! Totally different although the dresses will be fairly the same but to her it's important, that it's not the same). Again no picture.

But I took a picture of my current knitting project. I'm working on Hitofude by Hiroku Fukatsu, available for 1,74 Euro via ravelry. It's a steal! It's a well written pattern and there are tons of finished objects on ravelry.

I'm knitting my Hitofude out of Wolle Rödel Micro Uno a fingering microfibre yarn, that I got for free from a fellow knitter (only had to pay for the shipping). The yarn is very soft and very slippery but has a great sheen and I hope it won't pill too much.

I have no idea why the picture has different colours to it. Sorry for that

I'm at repeat No. 10 out of 11 and those are both sleeves, which are knitted at once in one piece.

At the pace I'm knitting I guess it will be well into spring before I can wear it. Still I'm already thinking about the next sweater. I'm weird like that.

Montag, September 22, 2014

I'm back!
My tests came out all cleared and I'm over the moon, as you can guess.
So I decided to come off the stash diet that I kind of have put myself onto (kind of, I just wanted to come out with less stash than I started the year). I was visiting with my SIL and the coats warehouse sale is about 45 minutes away from her house. Since I needed a break from too much family, I decided to go.
And this is what I took home with me (my MIL has more at her house since FIL and MIL were there with their car)

100gr Regia sock yarn in purple

2 skeins of Red heart fina DK

2 skeins of Rowan fine art

4 skeins of Regia Silk, in an awful colour but they were 2 Euro a skein, so I will overdye it!

8 skeins of Extra Merino (as you can see, they were 12 Euro total). I thought I bought 10 though. Not sure what I'm going to do with it...

and this is my favourite! 20 skeins of Rowan Baby Merino Silk DK. For only 80 Euro! I saved 3,60 Euro per skein!

I also bought 100gr Regia sock yarn undyed and two scarves that you can unravel and make socks out of. I could have bought even more!!!

Sonntag, August 03, 2014

So, I have
been MIA again. But this time it’s not the mojo or the lack of pictures
(although I do need to take a ton of pictures of finished things).

I’m mostly
offline at the moment, just a second here and there to make bank transfers or
to write emails, that really have to be written (like official stuff). And
there’s a reason for me being offline. I have suffered an acute loss of my
hearing on my left ear and now I try to reduce stress as much as possible and
while I don’t really feel stressed by reading blogs or messages on ravelry, I
think it really gives me more time to focus on other things. That’s why I’m
writing this post in word first and will upload it the next time I need to do
some urgent things on my laptop.

Beeing
offline as given me plenty of time to focus on my creative endeavor.

The vintage
jeans I have been talking about are finished. Somehow the fit isn’t as great as
I hoped it would be, esp. since I did most of the fitting with a
Palmer-Pletsch-Instructor. And the button has already popped off (I installed
it badly to be honest). The pockets aren’t deep enough. I have no idea if I’m
ready to tackle jeans again, now that I found out, that I can wear the Lands
end Jeans without any fitting issues. Why go thru all that fitting if you can
find a really great fitting Jeans? But I will wear it and I’m happy to have
used some very old stash fabric. I hope to post a real review once I’m back to
my old self

Another
vintage project is also done. “It cannot fail to please” from “A stitch in time
vol.1” by Susan Crawford and Jane Waller. I love it. It’s so stunning. As you
might remember, I thought I did not have enough fabric but as it appears I have
two more skeins in my stash, so I could have made the sleeves much longer. But
alas, it has short sleeves now and I will wear it proudly. It’s a great
pattern. The only thing I really disliked was the lack of a knitting chart. I
get so confused with written patterns, so I made the swatch and then I could
see which stitches had to be stacked on top of each other and I was able to
write out a chart myself. The instructions would have been 5 pages shorter if
you just could have written,” Knit x stitches, purl y stitches (or so) then
follow the chart 8 times, ….” I know, that a lot of people out there really
prefer written instructions, I’m just not one of them.

I also
knitted the body in the round up to the armholes. While I can see, that
shoulder seams do add stability to a garment, I haven’t found, that side seams
in knitted garments have any benefits for the fit. Have you found that? I did
cast off with a 3 needle bind off at the shoulders and that has given me enough
support. The sleeves I knitted flat, since I did not have the brain to convert
it into the round at that point.

The yarn is
a mystery yarn from my stash. I got it from the sale bin at my LYS a couple of
years ago. I think I remember the owner saying, that it was a bamboo blend. It
has a great feel and a bit of sheen to it and it will pill like crazy.

I also
decided to take part in the summer sew along hosted by Isabelle from the Fluffy
Fiber podcast. (if flickr will let me upload pictures at some point, I’m really
mad at flickr at the moment!).

I made 2
Polly Tops by “By hand London” so far. I added kind of an FBA to the pattern
and I guess I should have added a little more since they are a tiny bit snug
over my bustline. The pattern is a freebie and I highly recommend it. It’s
great for using up odds and ends of fabric for the contrast insert. The first
top I made is made out of linen remnants from the stash.I did chop off the shoulder straps quite a
bit after reading reviews that they would run long. Not in my case. They are
very snug to be honest. And I forgot to tape down the “dart” that appeared when
I made my interesting take on the FBA. So I had to ease inthe extra ease at the side seam. But it is
o.k. for wearing around the house and when doing errants.

The second
incarnation is out of some quilting cotton I also had in my stash for a long
while and some cotton satin leftover from old old old projects. So two more
pieces of stash gone! (or nearly gone. I have plans for the scraps of the
dotted fabric). This time I added some of the extra length back to the straps.
Mostly in the back to help with my upper round back as well. It’s better but I
think, it can have even more fabric added back to it. I like the top itself,
but the bias binding is not my favourite. If I make it again, I will add a
facing instead or make a bias facing.

That’s it
for now. I have more to show, but that will have to wait for another day or
week. I think of you!

Montag, Juni 09, 2014

So, in my last post I told you, that I had lost my knitting mojo.
I managed to finish the bodice without any problems and started knitting in the sleeves. I made progress and had to get more yarn. Then I just found one more ball.
And I stalled out.
I never would be able to finish both sleeves with one ball of yarn.
I just could not knit on the sleeve.
So I started on a Leftie by Martina Behm
(Sorry, my tablet dislikes posting pictures)

Then I cleaned a knitting bag and what did I find?
Another ball of yarn! And I was on a roll! I finished the first sleeve yesterday and started yhe second tonight. Now the first of the two balls of yarn is nearly gone and I start to get paralysed again. Waaaaaah.

Freitag, Mai 23, 2014

So, another blog post from my tablet pc since I hafe a sick kid at home again. Luckiky we get 10 days per kid and parent off work per year with the insurance paying as ling as you are a member of the public insurance companies.

Yesterday it has been quiet warm here and instead of knitting I just thought about it.

As you know, I really don't like having more than 2 projects on the needles at a time. And I'm still working on my epic sweater project. I have separated the front and the back abd fir some reason I was at a different place than the pattern said I should be at. I modified the pattern but just by adding 2 complete repeats.

Somehow this stalled me out and I lost my sweater mojo. I made 2 cowls and nearly 1 pair of socks instead. But I'm determined to pick it up again. But see, instead of knitting I even blogged about it....

and I took a picture before M. woke up. She is really ill, we went to see the doc again and her fever is up again as well. Now that she is sleeping, I will knit some more. Maybe knitting on it will help me get my mojo back.